The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [84]
But with Granny Rappaport one could never be quite sure whether she had altogether pinned down the subject under discussion or was talking about something totally different. Edward chose to ignore her and said that, all right then, that was all he had wanted to say and, by the way, thanked them for their co-operation. So they were dismissed...and still did not know at whose hard-won comforts the thin rats of economy were about to begin gnawing.
Edward, of course, was the sort of person for whom words and deeds are the same. Perhaps, the Major reflected, he would consider it sufficient to announce the economy drive without actually putting it into practice. That afternoon, however, while Edward and the Major were taking an after-lunch stroll on the terrace outside the ballroom, the twins were noticed fishing in the swimming-pool with an old tennis racket. They were brusquely summoned.
“Stand here and let’s see how tall you are. Oh, stand up straight, girl! D’you need clothes?”
“Yes, Daddy. Ours are all in flitters, mine especially.”
“Mine are worse.”
“Mine are ten times, twenty times, a hundred times—” Charity held up the darned elbow of her cardigan—“a million million times worse.”
“How long have you had the clothes you’ve got?”
“Absolutely ages.”
“A billion years.”
“All right then, follow me. You come too, Major, and see fair play.”
Edward turned in through the grimy desert of the ball-room and they followed him across it and up an unfamiliar staircase, seldom used, to judge by the spiders’ webs which garnished the banister. As they climbed the twins pestered Edward with questions: what were these clothes? Had he been to Dublin to the shops? Was it Switzer’s, or Pim’s, or Brown Thomas’s, or what was it? How did he know their size and did he realize that Faith was a bit bigger in her bosom? Edward made no reply; he was short of breath and flushed. As they struck off down a corridor he murmured to the Major: “Getting old. Must take it easy these days.”
The twins had run ahead; every step they took raised a puff of dust from the carpet, so that their footprints appeared like smoke, glittering in the stripes of afternoon sunlight that filtered through half-open doors. Underfoot loose floorboards creaked and shifted ominously.
“If I get dry rot I’m done for,” Edward continued as if still discussing his health.
“Oh?”
“Bally place’ll fall about m’ears.”
One hundred and twenty-one, one hundred and twenty-two, one hundred and twenty-three...The next room had no brass number screwed to the door but once there had been one; its darker shadow remained on the varnished wood. It was at this door that Edward halted. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it.
“In there?” exclaimed Charity, mystified. It was dark inside. Edward crossed to the window and threw open the closed shutters. Abruptly everything took on shape, colour and meaning. Although he had never been here before, everything he saw was perfectly familiar to the Major. He knew whose room this had been. His heart sank.
The twins had not been in here before. The room seemed to be occupied. They peered around curiously but already their excitement was melting into suspicion. They looked at the unmade bed, sheets and eiderdown roughly pulled up as if the chambermaid had not had time to make it properly. They wrinkled their noses at the pitcher and bowl, the sponge dried as hard as the pumice-stone beside it. They eyed their lovely reflections in the mirror and looked at the dressing-table with its silver hairbrushes and the silver frame containing a photograph of, well...the truth had dawned on them now but for a moment they were speechless with disbelief.
“Now let